BLACKPOOL Victoria Hospital has been rated as one of the worst hospitals in the UK in a new Good Hospital Guide.

The Vic was given one star -- out of a possible ten -- in the Good Hospital Guide 2002, published in the Mail on Sunday.

And it was among the bottom 17 hospitals in the ratings compiled by independent health guide publisher Dr Foster. The guide rated the overall performance of hospitals and included patient death rates.

It said that the Vic had high emergency hip fracture and stroke admission death rates and a high overall mortality rate.

The guide also noted that stroke patients at the hospital did not always get a CT scan within 48 hours of admission and that heart attack patients were not usually treated with thrombolysis within 30 minutes of arrival in A and E.

But it did conclude that the Vic's waiting time figures were good and the hospital met new targets for providing multi-disciplinary teams to treat cancer.

Sir Donald Irvine, past president of the General Medical Council, said that the new guide was a good gauge of hospital standards: "The Mail on Sunday Good Hospital Guide is the most authoritative and accurate measure of hospital standards," he said.

But the poor ranking is at odds with the impressive three stars the Vic received in Government performance ratings. The Government system focused on management performance rather than solely on measures of patient care.

A spokeswoman for the Vic said that the new guide did not give a fair reflection of care at the hospital.

About the mortality rates in the guide, she said: "We do not believe that the data comparison takes adequate account of the exceptionally high elderly population within the area, or the stage of the patients' illness when they are admitted."

She said that the maximum age range analysed in the report is 85+ but Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde -- the area served by the Vic -- have 50 per cent more residents over the age of 90 than other hospital trusts in the region.

She also said that underlying medical conditions that patients have on arrival could influence mortality rates -- North West Lancashire has one of the highest rates of heart disease and cancer in the country.

She said that since the figures were released, the Vic had introduced a 24-hour nurse-led thrombolysis which was helping the hospital work towards meeting the 30-minute target and that the hospital had introduced a number of measures to reduce waiting times for CT scans.

"The Trust is extremely pleased that for the second year running our patients' confidence in the medical staff who treat them is the highest in the country. All of our staff work extremely hard to provide high quality standards of care and treatment and the patient satisfaction recognises this," she said.